Purpose
Step Up addresses the needs of all students by providing individualised support for learning. Our aim is to provide opportunities for all students to improve academically and to achieve their full potential.
Program Organisation
The program is organised across two semesters for all students in Years 3-6:
The program is delivered by a team of class teachers, Support Teachers Literacy and Numeracy (STsLaN) and highly trained teacher aides. Our school has restructured all operations to enable our teacher aides to participate in the running of this program.
Step Up is designed to complement the teaching of reading comprehension, aspects of writing and problem solving in mathematics in all classrooms. Students are supported in either the classroom setting or the Step Up teaching area.
Teaching Elements
Reading
The reading comprehension strategies that the program focuses on include:
(Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies a Practical Classroom Guide-Sheena Cameron 2009)
These strategies are consolidated using a variety of text types at an appropriate level of difficulty for each group of students. Each group follows a structured, focused sequence of teaching.
Writing
Writing focuses on a written response related to the key reading comprehension strategy for each week. The writing strategies that the program focuses on include:
Plan for Success
Sizzling start
Tightening Tension
Dynamic Dialogue
Show, don't tell
Ban the boring bits
Exciting endings
(The Seven Steps to Effective Writing –Jen Mc Veity)
Mathematics
IMPACT (Inspire, Model, Practise, Connect, Apply, Transform)
The problem solving strategies include:
Problems are differentiated and graduated in difficulty using the following resources:
Think board –SEE, PLAN, DO, CHECK
20 Questions in 20 Days (regional resource)
U2B (Upper 2 Bands) additional lesson material